A Canadian National (CN) Rail freight train carrying crude oil derailed and caught fire Tuesday night near the northwest New Brunswick town of Plaster Rock. No injuries have been reported.

The Transportation Safety Board ((TSB) reports that 17 cars are believed to have derailed, eight carrying dangerous goods and one a locomotive.  According to CN Rail President and CEO Claude Monganu five of the derailed cars were carrying crude oil, and the other four propane.

The 122-car train was heading to the Irving Oil Refinery in St. John from central Canada. The derailment occurred just after 7 pm about five km from Plaster Rock, in Wapske.

Dan Holbrook with the TSB told the CBC the incident was cause by a mechanical failure affecting the train's breaking system. A ruptured airline connecting the cars caused an emergency break application, he said. 

"Trains have a continuous pipe running throughout the train that supplies air to the brake system on every car," he said.

"If that brake pipe comes apart, that causes the brakes throughout the train to go into emergency…and that means the train will stop as fast as it can."

The incident comes just over a week after an accident in North Dakota caused several oil train cars to burst into flames and explode. The North Dakota accident is just one among many high-profile oil train accidents to occur within the last six months, including Lac-Mégantic where 47 people perished as the result of a tanker train derailment.

The TSB has deployed a team of investigators to the scene, where the fires still burn. The site is under the control of authorities with the local fire department.

Premier David Alward attended a news conference this morning to express gratitude there were no injuries and said there appeard to be no serious impact to the environment. 

"Every day we have the movement of goods and services across our country by many different modes of transportation," said Alward. "Every mode of transportation is not without risk.

"What is important to realize is how we are able to respond to situations when they happen really determines how we are able to manage as we go forward."

The TSB will further investigate the site when they determine it is safe to do so.

"The team will evaluate the accident and document the derailment site, inspect the equipment and track infrastructure and identify any items that may require closer inspection. They will examine the maintenance history of the train, operation of the equipment and operation policies, meteorological conditions, and review any human factors," states a TSB press release.

First responders were forced to stay a safe distance from the fire, which was large enough to be seen from a "significant" distance away, reports CBC. A 2km radius including 45 households has been evacuated, said Feeny, director of public and government affairs for CN Rail.

Plaster Rock mayor Alexis Fenner reportedly said all roads were blocked and shut down by the police after the derailment.

"On our balcony, we can just see flames. Every now and then, there's a huge fireball, as if there was an explosion," Plaster Rock resident Carol Jervis told Global News.

Another resident said her husband went to the area and "could see flames shooting in the air from quite far away. He could see it very clearly. It was about 50 to 60 feet he told me he could see."

J.D. Saddler, a resident of Wapske, told CBC that he was driving back there from Plaster Rock when the derailment occurred, and he saw "a great big cloud of orange smoke and the flames were really high in the air, the smoke was really high in the air."

At the time, there was no given time frame for when crews could move in. Feeny said CN Rail senior managers and hazardous materials experts were en route from Moncton, Montreal and Toronto.

An evacuation centre was set up at Plaster Rock, with the Canadian Red Cross dispatching volunteers with supplies to assist local authorities at the centre. Bill Lawlor, Canadian Red Cross director of disaster management for New Brunswick, said that this was a precautionary measure, as the area is sparsely populated and the small numbers impacted by the evacuation would probably stay with friends or family.

Lawlor added that the volunteers were ready with blankets and cots should any residents require shelter, or if circumstances should change.

According to the CBC, another derailment that occurred at Plaster Rock was one of two incidents that led the TSB to issue a summons in 2006, requiring CN Rail to turn in all its records.

The CBC's investigation discovered that CN Rail did not report more than 1,800 derailments and accidents over a six-year period, including 44 derailments and one collision on "key arterial rail tracks."

The derailment comes days after a joint task force announced by BC and Alberta premiers Christy Clark and Alison Redford handed in a report exploring the feasibility of transporting oil by rail as a backup in case pipeline projects fall through.

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Provincial auditor general Merwan Saher has agreed to conduct an audit of oil pipeline safety in Alberta, responding to requests from a coalition of 54 public interest groups dissatisfied with the provincial government's third-party report released in August.

"We will be auditing the government's monitoring systems to ensure compliance with Alberta's pipeline regulations. Our audit would include inspection and enforcement processes," Saher wrote in a letter to Alberta's Opposition parties Wildrose and the NDP, which were among the groups demanding the review.

The government-commissioned pipeline safety review, conducted by Group 10 Engineering, was announced by Energy Minister Ken Hughes in July 2012 after several major pipeline oil spills in the province, including a 475,000 litre leak from a Plains Midstream Canada pipeline in Central Alberta in June. The final report was made public a year later, in August 2013.

Following the release of the report last month, a coalition representing 54 environmental, First Nations, labour and landowner groups wrote to Premier Alison Redford requesting another review. The letter stated that "Albertans deserve to know the real scope of the province's pipeline problems and they deserve real solutions," leaving the group "no choice but to begin to petition the Alberta auditor general to take on such an examination."  

Eriel Deranger, Communications Coordinator for the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation said “Oil spills pose a major threat to our community, which depends on clean air, water and soil to sustain our way of life. We are pleased that the Auditor General will be looking into pipeline safety, as we feel the provincial government hasn’t been doing enough to prevent spills from happening.”

“It’s been a long road pushing for this review but hopefully the Auditor General will finally give Albertan’s some answers to Alberta’s pipeline woes because the Redford government definitely hasn’t,” said Mike Hudema, Greenpeace Canada’s climate and energy campaigner. “Groups from across the political spectrum joined together to push for this review because of the growing threats pipeline spills are posing to Alberta’s communities and environment. I hope this review will give the government time to pause on its pipeline-pushing ways because all is not well in Alberta.”

Jennifer Grant, director of the oilsands program at the Pembina Institute, applauded Saher for "showing leadership on this important issue," saying that the "audit presents an opportunity to restore Albertans' confidence in the provincial regulator's ability to manage pipelines and the associated risks."

"With 400,000 square kilometres of pipelines crisscrossing the province, and an average of two crude oil spills a day for the past 37 years, ensuring the integrity and safety of Alberta's pipeline network is absolutely critical and could set an important precedent for other jurisdictions," Grant said in a news release.

Global News reports that the auditor general "has been considering a pipeline safety audit for much of the past year" according to spokeswoman Kim Nishikaze. Nishikaze added that they "will be looking at pipeline safety in the foreseeable future" but "can't say when."

Saher wrote in his letter that the pipeline safety audit would be undertaken "as soon as reasonably possible."

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Documents from Public Safety Canada, released under access to information legislation, say that natural disasters and the rising cost they incur are the country's biggest public safety risk.

According to the documents, a human resources and briefing plan released to Global News, Canada's current emergency response infrastructure may be insufficient to manage a large-scale disaster. A federal program designed to aid the provinces in emergency will undergo an assessment for its "sustainability," the documents state. 

The briefing plan, written by Deputy Minister Francois Guimont, lists the "top 3 risks" for 2013-2014, with natural disasters and their costs at number one.

The document states that "worldwide costs of natural disasters have increased steadily from an annual average of losses of $25 million in the 1980s to $130 billion in the 2000(s)." This "recent, dramatic increase," writes Guimont, "indicates a broader trend in Canada and globally."

The rising costs of natural disasters "may increase the federal liability" of the Government of Canada under the Disaster Finance Assistance Arrangements (DFAA), a federal plan designed to distribute disaster recovery funds to the provinces, the documents note. Under the DFAA Ottawa will cover up to 90 per cent of a province's eligible costs. The DFAA will be assessed by Public Safety Canada "to ensure program sustainability."

According to Public Safety Canada, the government has paid out more than $2.3 billion since 1970.

Natural disasters are getting more expensive, however, with the Alberta floods alone costing an estimated $5 billion.

The second highest risk noted in the file is the government's inability to respond to natural disasters through the Government Operations Centre, which provides federal emergency response at the national level.

"The Government Operations Centre (GOC) infrastructure may be unable to support a coordinated response to large-scale or multiple significant events affecting the national interest," says the document.

Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney did not provide comment on the documents although a department spokesman told Global News the government committed to speaking with the provinces and territories to discuss disaster mitigation.

Spokesman Jean Paul Duval said in an email that the government recognizes "that mitigation can lessen the impact of natural disasters on vulnerable communities and reduce the costs associated with these events." He added that the department has been "working diligently" to address the problems facing the GOC.

"The Government's response to a number of events this year, such as the flooding in Alberta, demonstrates our ability to manage the risk at this time," said Duval.

The document says that the GOC needs to be moved to "a new accommodation if it is to contribute to the department's mandate," because it is "housed in a building that Public Works and Government Services Canada intends to remove from the federal government inventory within the next three years."

NDP national defence critic Jack Harris says that the Conservatives aren't doing enough to prepare for the rise in natural disasters, reports Stone. "We don't see this government taking seriously the notion that climate change is going to have more serious implications in the future," said Harris.

York University professor Ali Asgary, who teaches in the emergency management program, said the uncertainty about the GOC's ability to respond to disasters is "a real concern."

According to the documents Public Safety Canada plans to develop a "National Resilience Strategy" to reduce the "occurence and negative impacts of disasters." 

Global News writes this strategy will involve "empowering citizens, emergency response, organizations, communities and governments to share the responsibility to prevent hazards from becoming disasters."

The third risk outlined in the document is the possible insufficiency of current policies to address the evolution of organized crime.

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